The clerical life

A Bishop's Tale: Mathias Hovius Among His Flock in Seventeenth-Century Flanders, by Craig Harline and Eddy Put

When Catholic Archbishop Mathias Hovius died on May 30, 1620, no crowds swarmed around to try to grab a piece of clothing or even a piece of the corpse itself. However holy his life had been, he was apparently not considered a potential saint. As authors Craig Harline and Eddy Put record, Hovius was "not beloved, but rather respected, and the quite routine ceremonies that followed his death reflected that."